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Overview
Blanche Lake is not like the other mothers who come to collect their children at the local nursery school on New York’s Upper East Side. She lives alone, has a job, and has never been married. It’s the first day of school when this story begins, and Blanche is eager to see how her daughter, Bunny, has fared away from home. But her expectant waiting becomes a mother’s most dreaded nightmare: Bunny never materializes. Neither teachers nor students recall the small girl, and soon Blanche is engaged in a frantic search for any trace of her missing daughter. And the worst part is . . . no one believes her. In this fraught and at times freakish tale of suspense, Evelyn Piper takes us deep into the psyche of the 1950s to explore American fetishes, fallacies, and fears around motherhood and sexuality. Blanche emerges as a new kind of heroine—a hard-boiled mom with gun in hand, willing to take any risk to find her missing daughter.
“A classic thriller—a riveting revisit to the dark side of the fifties, where the tension beneath the calm surface has an undertow that drags the reader into its grip. Prime pulp—pure pleasure.” —Linda Fairstein, author of The Bone Vault
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781558617759 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Feminist Press at CUNY, The |
| Publication date: | 12/06/2018 |
| Series: | Femmes Fatales Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 213 |
| File size: | 579 KB |
About the Author
Merriam Modell, pen name Evelyn Piper, was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1908. She is known for writing mystery thrillers of intricate, suspenseful plotting that depict the domestic conflicts of American families. Her short stories have appeared in the The New Yorker and two of her novels, Bunny Lake Is Missing and The Nanny, were adapted into major Hollywood films.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
This time when Blanche came in the woman was alone in her vegetable store. Waiting for the woman to pick an apple off the shining pyramid of them, Blanche could not help glancing at the dark corner where, each evening until this one, the boy had leaned against the dusty potatoes and stared at her.
The woman lifted an apple off the pyramid, near the base. "He isn't here. Eddie. My boy."
"Oh, is he your son?" There was no resemblance at all to this big, firm, healthy woman. Opposites, Blanche thought. "I think I saw your son this morning." The woman suddenly pressed the apple to her breast. It was a startling gesture.
"You saw Eddie? Where?"
"Outside my house." Blanche took a dime from her purse.
"Did he say something to you?"
"He couldn't. I was inside the glass doors. I was in the lobby waving goodbye to my mother."
"So he found out where you live and all!" She bit her lip. "After that ... did you see Eddie after that?"
"I'm afraid not." The boy Eddie was in some trouble. He looked like trouble, Blanche thought. "The minute a taxi came for Mother, I went upstairs again."
"You come out again, didn't you? Did you see my Eddie when you come out?"
"No. I took my little girl to school when I came out next, and I was in a terrible rush. Is there some trouble with your son?"
"You're the trouble, Missus! Eddie and his papa had a terrible fight last night. Over you," she said.
"Me? But Mrs. —"
"Negrito."
"Mrs. Negrito, I've never even spoken to your son."
"You think you got to speak? You didn't notice every night how he ate you up with his eyes? His papa noticed!"
"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Negrito." Blanche held out her hand for the apple, remembering the boy's narrow, deep-set eyes, the feverish way he wet his lips, the way he kept them slightly apart. "I have to go now."
Mrs. Negrito clasped the apple. "It's because Eddie never had a girl. You know! George shouldn't have gone at him so hot and heavy: 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away. An apple a day keeps Eddie away!' You know. Because you buy that apple every time. 'You going to stand there till that apple drops down, Eddie? You'll wait until she drops for you, Eddie?' Oh, my God," the woman said, "he got Eddie wild! 'You'll see if I'm waiting until she drops,' Eddie yelled. Because Eddie's little and quiet, George — my hubby — he doesn't know!" Now, giving up, Mrs. Negrito put the apple in a paper sack and took Blanche's dime at last.
Blanche repeated, "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Negrito. I won't come here again." The woman looked at her as if she had said something very stupid, shrugged as if she had come to her senses much too late.
She would not buy Bunny's apples in that store so the incident was over. When she came out of the subway, she would walk down Lexington Avenue a way and not go down Eighty-Sixth Street at all. Blanche walked quickly, holding the paper sack away from her body as if it contained something that might soil her suit, and because she was holding it that way, as if it could drip, she understood what had happened in the vegetable store on Friday evening. As she left, she had heard the big man, Mr. Negrito, laugh behind her, and then Mrs. Negrito had gasped so sharply that she had turned her head to see. The three of them were just standing there staring at the pyramid of apples, but now she knew what Eddie had done in retaliation for his father's teasing. He had spat at the apples. It had been spittle she had seen sliding down the shining flanks of the apples. Holding the paper sack away from her, Blanche went to the curb and dropped it. She brushed her hands together and told herself to brush off her mind, too, wanting nothing of the apple thing to touch Bunny.
If she hadn't allowed plenty of time, that vegetable woman would have made her late, but it was just five now.
Just in time, Blanche thought, seeing the other mothers going into the red door of the nursery school. She went in also and stood looking at the darkish hall with the two old wooden benches along the wall on which the others had seated themselves. One of the women, wearing bright blue slacks, shoved closer to her neighbor on the bench and made a place beside her.
"Come and join the rest of us stage-door Johnnies."
Blanche smiled gratefully and sat down.
"Boy or girl?" the woman in the blue slacks asked.
"Bunny's a girl. Felicia, really; I just call her Bunny."
"Is Bunny your only one? Don't answer that! I can see by the stars in your eyes that she is. Look at her, Maeve; she can't wait for Bunny to come down those stairs!" Maeve, wearing oxford-gray slacks, grinned. "Wait until you have three little bunnies in the old hutch! You won't be so anxious!"
"There couldn't be three like Bunny." Blanche looked at her wrist watch. It was five after five. "Except for one week while I was looking for an apartment for us, this is the first we've ever been separated. And Mother was with her then. This is the first Bunny's ever been with strangers."
"Have patience, have patience. They're supposed to be down by five, and don't think the teachers aren't as anxious as you are, but you know the little darlings when anybody's in a hurry! Sometimes it takes an extra ten minutes for the poor teachers to clean them up enough for us to recognize our precious angels when we see them!" Blanche looked at the hall again and it seemed dirty to her. She told herself that the boy Eddie had done it. When he spat at the apples, he dirtied the whole city for her, that was it. But the impression remained. The walls were brilliantly blue, but the paint was so lumpy that it seemed as if someone had simply painted the bright, clean colors right over whatever had been underneath; that dirt, insects, mouse droppings were permanently fixed in the paint like flies in amber. She said to the woman in the bright blue slacks, "This is a good nursery school, isn't it? I just moved into New York two weeks ago, and all I know about the school is from the brochure, really."
"Well, my oldest, Petey, went here all last year and I didn't get any complaints." She pulled a face. "Of course, at the time Pete could only speak about ten words, so you wouldn't exactly call him a very reliable reference!"
"Don't look so serious, Mrs. —?"
"Lake," Blanche said.
"She's just teasing you, Mrs. Lake. It's a fine school. Miss Benton is pure Boston. You can rely on good old Boston any time. Your little girl will be fine here."
Another woman leaned across so she could see Blanche. "Any school that will keep my Jerry safe and happy and out of my hair from nine to five, five days a week, is okay by me. I have a pair of fourteen-month-old twins underfoot at home and that's about all I can take!"
"It's talk like that, Alice, that gave that Ford woman her high opinion of us!" She said to Blanche, "There was this teacher here last year who honestly thought we weren't fit to be mothers!"
"Ford wasn't fit to be a teacher. They got rid of her, thank goodness!"
"Some people don't approve of nursery schools," Blanche said. "My own mother doesn't."
"Nonsense. It's the best place for them. Keeps them safe and keeps them happy."
Safe and happy, Blanche thought. Of course. The two women in slacks started to talk to each other, and, so she wouldn't seem to be eavesdropping, she took the letter from Chloe out of her purse. There hadn't been time to read it that morning. It was one of those envelopes and stationery in one, blue and flimsy. Blanche tore down the sides where it was perforated and crumpled the strip of paper in her hand. As she reached for some place to throw the strip, Blanche saw the red-headed boy near the door and smiled at him. He blushed. (About ten. Shy, Blanche thought. When Bunny is ten, she'll be shy, too, maybe. Right now, of course, the whole world's her friend.) Blanche smiled at the red-headed boy again and began to read the letter:
Dear Blanche,
Married to a strange Englishman three whole weeks and still ecstatically happy except that I miss you and Bunny so much. Gavin and I talked about Bunny all across the wide Atlantic. He was terribly taken with her and teddibly disappointed that you wouldn't let us have her the way your mother wanted. Much as I love Bunny, I would have been disappointed if you had. Bunny belongs to you. Not that I had any hopes ... that was pure mother and not her girl Blanche! You stick by your guns, old thing! Certainly, as your mother says, Bunny needs a father, and — as I'm discovering every minute — a husband comes in right handy, but he'll be Mr. Right and not Mr. Albert Stakely Wrong! Gavin is concerned about you all alone in the big city, but you won't be alone long. All the world loves a lovely, and you're a lovely, Blanche. Will write again as soon as I meet Gavin's folks — excuse me — Pater and Mater!
With all my love, Chloe Wright Bainter
Blanche, smiling at Chloe's letter, looked up and saw that the red-headed boy had come up to her and was staring.
Gray Slacks said, "It's not your fatal beauty, Mrs. Lake. Chrissie is here to collect his little sister, but what he is really interested in collecting is stamps."
"Would you like this one, Chrissie? It's from England." She was about to tear off the corner with the stamp on it, but the boy stopped her. He collected covers, he said.
"Envelopes," Gray Slacks explained.
"I got three hundred and four."
Chrissie was looking hungrily at her letter from Chloe. The nice woman in gray slacks was watching. Blanche hesitated. As Chloe had written she was alone, and even a letter from a friend ... But that was silly. This nice woman might be her friend if she didn't show herself up too stingy to part with a letter.
"Do you have a pencil?" she asked Chrissie.
When he gave her one, she crossed over the body of the letter. "Personal," she said to Chrissie.
"Yeah," he said. "Thank you."
"Here they come now," said the gray-slacks one.
Blanche looked up and saw, at the head of the stairs, a young woman in an orange smock which shone like a lantern. She had two children by the hand and behind her trooped the others, each wearing blue jeans and a little jacket. They looked adorable, Blanche thought.
The one in bright blue slacks narrowed her eyes. "Those are the big boys and girls."
The description "big boys and girls" would have made Blanche smile except even they seemed so tiny to be sent off to school that she felt a sudden fear of having left Bunny, so much smaller, so much more helpless. "How old is yours?" she asked.
"Petey's five. There he is now! Hi, Pete! Timmy's three. June sixth. Just got in under the ropes, Timmy did."
"Bunny was three in April."
"An old lady."
"She looked such an infant when I walked out and left her. Her eyes were the biggest thing about her. I have to, though. I have a job."
"In an office? Maeve, remember when you had a job? Nine to five? And got paid for what you did? Remember when you had holidays, Maeve?"
"Do I! Don't let Emily get you down. This is a fine school, and they do wonders for the children. You'll see. Hello, Chic," she said to a little boy in a red corduroy jacket and a red beanie. "Your mom's outside with your sister and the baby buggy."
"All the other mommys are outside," the teacher said. "Everybody in our group has a mommy outside waiting. You remember from last year, don't you, Anne? Don't you, Perry?"
"Outside," Perry said.
"Big as a penny," Blanche whispered to the gray slacks, "and cute as a button." But not beautiful like Bunny, she thought, and glanced toward the stairs again, for as the wavering line of children went out into the street, she could hear fresh sounds from upstairs and looked into the dimness eagerly. She wondered if it would be all right to ask Bunny's teacher — how ridiculous — Bunny's teacher — how Bunny had taken her first day in school. Had she made friends? (Made friends — Bunny!) Had she eaten the strange food for the first time without Mommy there to tell her stories — and drunk milk out of a glass that didn't have a bunny rabbit on it? Had they taken the chill off the milk? Had Bunny managed to take a nap on one of the small cots she had seen this morning? Blanche was so glad she had gone back, even though they were so late, when they discovered that Bunny had forgotten her cuddly toy she always went to sleep with. And had Bunny been a young lady all day, and had she wet again?
"Now there's Timmy. Hi, Tim, how's the boy?"
Timmy was coming downstairs holding the low rail with one hand and a little girl's hand with the other. Not Bunny, though. "He's so sweet," Blanche whispered. He had a most solemn expression.
"I'll swap sight unseen for your little girl. Which is yours?"
Blanche stood up and moved toward the stairs a little: not the children holding to the orange-smocked teacher's hands. She could see traces of tears on the boy's face nearest her. Did that mean that only the crybabies got to walk downstairs holding on to Teacher? Oh, brave little Bunny! Not the two children after that, not with Timmy. Seven, eight, nine, ten. "How many are there in the group?" Ten, the brochure said.
Gray Slacks moved toward her Timmy. "Ten. Ten nursery-school pupils to one teacher; that's the law in New York City, isn't it, Miss Green?" She kissed Timmy's cheek. "Are you sticky, kid!" Timmy still clung to his partner's hand. "Look, Miss Green, just like his old man! Timmy doesn't want to let go of his new girl friend!"
"Timmy and Bessie have been good friends all day. The rest of the mothers are outside. Come on, people!"
Blanche started to ask Miss Green about Bunny, but the boy who had been crying began again, so she stepped back toward the wall. Gray Slacks, having detached the girl friend's hand, lifted Timmy and set him down on the bench and was smoothing down his curly hair. "Bunny wasn't there," Blanche said.
"Not there? Probably overslept then. They nap after lunch and if the little ones oversleep, Miss Green would let them have their sleep out. I stopped her letting Petey because then I'd never get him off at bedtime."
"It would be a miracle, Bunny napping. I don't think she's slept during her nap time once in six months."
"Wet, then." Gray Slacks moistened a handkerchief and applied it to Timmy's sticky cheek. "Wet and rewet, maybe. Did you bring enough extras for her?" She pulled the corduroy beanie down on Timmy's head.
"I didn't bring any extras," Blanche said.
"Didn't they tell you? Well, your living doll must be upstairs waiting to dry out, then. I tell you what, you can take a set out of Timmy's cubby." She saw that Blanche didn't understand. "That's what they call them — cubbies, cubbyholes. Each child has his own. They're marked with the kids' names. Aren't they, Tim?"
"That's very kind of you. I'll get them back by morning."
"It's darn funny you weren't told. With the Threes it's the first thing to remember. I mean — after all ..."
"I suppose they did and I forgot. I'll go up and get Bunny. One flight up and to the right."
"Two flights up and to the left."
"But I distinctly remember — I guess Bunny's in another Three group. There they come now!"
"Those elephants? That's a Five, I think. No, there's only one group of Threes. Third floor and to the left. The Threes use the roof garden up there instead of the yard or the park; that's why they put them up there. Well, so long — and you take an outfit of Timmy's." She lifted the little boy down. "Let's get out of here before that troop of elephants tramps us down, Tim. Run for your life!"
The little boy screamed for joy and ran off after his mother, whose wide rear, outlined by the tight pants, wriggled as she ran. "I like her," Blanche thought, watching them. The little boy, Timmy, wasn't afraid of a herd of elephants while his mother was with him. Now that the children had come closer, Blanche could see that they were older than Bunny. She waited while the children lunged past her noisily. This teacher was older, too. She looked tired; the brilliant orange smock, apparently a uniform for the teachers, was not becoming. "Excuse me," Blanche said. "Isn't there a Three group on the second floor this year?"
"Topside." She jerked her finger up. "Threes topside, right, Marie? We stow the Threes topside, don't we, Marie?"
She was talking as much to keep the thin little girl whose hand she held busy as to answer Blanche. (The little girl's mouth was trembling as she watched her classmates tumbling out of the door.)
"Marie, this mommy's little ..."
"Girl," Blanche said, starting upstairs.
"This mommy's little girl is stowed away topside. Wait a minute!" Blanche stopped. "Aren't the Threes down yet?"
"They're all out, just Bunny isn't because she wet her clothes." She was sure of this now.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Bunny Lake is Missing"
by .
Copyright © 1985 Merriam Modell.
Excerpted by permission of Feminist Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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